Sunday, July 02, 2006

The summer sporting festivities had begun. The world is in the grip of World Cup fever. Aussies all around the world are rallying for the seemingly impossible - a place in the Round of 16. However there is still another little sporting event in London that might be worth a look... Wimbledon.

Wimbledon tickets are hard to come by at the best of times - there are ballots, many corporate tickets, freebies etc. For mere mortals the way to secure a ticket is to line up on the day and hope that you are one of the 6000 that can get general grounds admission. That is us this morning. Our dedication to tennis was not so great that we would camp out, but there were plenty of people who did. At 5:45am Jonathan, Kelly and Liam jumped in the car with Dave to drive out to Wimbledon. After parking we started the long walk back along the line towards the end of it. The line snakes many times across the length of Wimbledon Common. We joined the rear of the queue around 7am we are issued our queuing card - number 2500. There are only 2500 people in front of us... in the north queue. By all indications the south queue should be similar. There should be a good chance of getting a ticket. By 10am the queue starts moving and we snake out of the common, through security and the ticket office, and secure our ground pass.

There are a couple of Aussies playing today. Ley-ley is second up on Court 2, so we join the queue to get into that court. A few famous faces walk past us in the queue - Andre Agassi coming back from a warmup on the outer courts and Rolf Harris (in a bright blue suit) on his way to the centre court restaurant. Jonathan indulged in some true Wimbledon food - strawberries and cream, washed down with a cider. Lleyton enters the court and we are still 20 people from the entrance to the standing area, so we listen to the first set from outside. By 2pm we finally get into the standing area of the court and get to see the last two sets of the match that Lleyton breezed through in 3 sets.

Next on court 2 is Venus Williams, so we stay for a bit of that match. The afternoon is whiled away watching various other matches around the outer courts.

In the evening there is a mixed doubles match with some Aussies. The "Wayne-train", Wayne Arthurs, and Alicia Molik are up against a Swedish pair on court 13, unlucky for some. They play well in the first set taking that, but begin to crack, losing the second set. The third set is close - in the fading light of 9:30pm - but it eventually goes the wrong way for the Aussies and their mixed doubles campaign is over. All that is left to do is exit and head for the car. Wimbledon is a great day out. We had plenty of fun getting around the courts, watching the games, sitting on the hill and eating strawberries and cream.